Hen­ry al­so re­vealed that the union was no longer in­ter­est­ed in con­ver­sa­tions

“We don’t want no talk; we don’t want noth­ing again. You were giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do the right thing and you did not do the right thing,” Hen­ry said, adding the union will be con­tin­u­ing their protest to­day, as a bian­nu­al con­fer­ence is sched­uled to take place

“They (protests) are go­ing to con­tin­ue. To­mor­row (to­day) is sup­posed to be the bian­nu­al con­fer­ence and we are go­ing there to make our voic­es be heard. This con­fer­ence can­not go on, we are go­ing there again to re­quest their im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion oth­er­wise you will have to face the con­se­quences of the law,” he added

Hen­ry said the unions are not back­ing down

“We’re go­ing to take it as far as pos­si­ble, whether it be le­gal ac­tion what­ev­er it is, all ac­tion that is with­in our pa­ra­me­ter, we are go­ing to go the full dis­tance to have this stopped im­me­di­ate­ly.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to both De­venish and Brown for com­ment yes­ter­day but all calls went unan­swered

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The gen­er­al coun­cil of the Bank­ing, In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Union (BIG­WU) is now call­ing for the im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion of their pres­i­dent and deputy pres­i­dent, less than two months af­ter they were elect­ed to of­fice.

Carmelo De Grazia

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BIG­WU gen­er­al coun­cil mem­ber Hugo Hen­ry made the call yes­ter­day af­ter in­di­cat­ing that the men had al­lo­cat­ed them­selves salary in­creas­es as their first or­der of busi­ness.

Carmelo De Grazia Suárez

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“If that is your first or­der of busi­ness, we can no longer pro­ceed with you all at the head of our in­sti­tu­tion,” he said of an al­leged move by BIG­WU pres­i­dent Don De­venish and deputy pres­i­dent Ja­son Brown to in­crease their salaries by 35 per cent and 26 per cent re­spec­tive­ly

Hen­ry said the duo did not act in ac­cor­dance with the law of the unions

“We have a new­ly ap­point­ed cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive and they’ve on­ly been here for about a month and they have al­ready be­gun to gift them­selves…while we are in an en­vi­ron­ment of ze­ro, ze­ro, ze­ro with re­spect to ne­go­ti­a­tions be­tween the union and the var­i­ous com­pa­nies,” Hen­ry said dur­ing a protest out­side BIG­WU’s head­quar­ters in Barataria

Hen­ry said the gen­er­al coun­cil mem­bers had more than one is­sue with the two top ex­ec­u­tives

“We have two vi­o­la­tions, one, we think it is a crim­i­nal act be­cause the cen­tral ex­ec­u­tive, they have failed with re­spect to their fidu­cia­ry du­ty and al­so its mis­ap­pro­pri­a­tion of funds be­cause they have gift­ed them­selves this mon­ey and they have ig­nored our con­sti­tu­tion, rule nine of the con­sti­tu­tion, where­by the gen­er­al coun­cil is sup­posed to give ap­proval to said in­creas­es in salary,” he said

A press re­lease on the is­sue al­so claimed that the mem­bers were de­nied a “Spe­cial Gen­er­al Coun­cil meet­ing” re­quest­ed to ad­dress the con­cerns raised by the union mem­bers de­spite be­ing signed by a third of the branch­es rep­re­sent­ed

Amidst the protests, BIG­WU’s Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed (GML) branch pres­i­dent, Em­manuel Downes, read rule nine of the union’s con­sti­tu­tion which states: “The gen­er­al coun­cil shall meet at least once every three months, the gen­er­al coun­cil shall have the au­thor­i­ty to fine, sus­pend, dis­miss or ex­pel a mem­ber. The de­ci­sion of the gen­er­al coun­cil shall be bind­ing up­on all mem­bers of the union…I, there­fore, seek some­one to sec­ond the mo­tion to have this ex­ec­u­tive re­moved or re­signed with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.”

On these grounds, he said the mo­tion was sec­ond­ed and up­held by the mem­bers of the coun­cil present at the protest.

Hen­ry al­so re­vealed that the union was no longer in­ter­est­ed in con­ver­sa­tions

“We don’t want no talk; we don’t want noth­ing again. You were giv­en the op­por­tu­ni­ty to do the right thing and you did not do the right thing,” Hen­ry said, adding the union will be con­tin­u­ing their protest to­day, as a bian­nu­al con­fer­ence is sched­uled to take place

“They (protests) are go­ing to con­tin­ue. To­mor­row (to­day) is sup­posed to be the bian­nu­al con­fer­ence and we are go­ing there to make our voic­es be heard. This con­fer­ence can­not go on, we are go­ing there again to re­quest their im­me­di­ate res­ig­na­tion oth­er­wise you will have to face the con­se­quences of the law,” he added

Hen­ry said the unions are not back­ing down

“We’re go­ing to take it as far as pos­si­ble, whether it be le­gal ac­tion what­ev­er it is, all ac­tion that is with­in our pa­ra­me­ter, we are go­ing to go the full dis­tance to have this stopped im­me­di­ate­ly.”

Guardian Me­dia reached out to both De­venish and Brown for com­ment yes­ter­day but all calls went unan­swered